JEEPERS CREEPERS

Here we are already into the last half of November, leaning toward Thanksgiving! For this second half card for the November Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge, I chose the lower right quadrant of the inspiration board.

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: November Mid Month Reminder

What started out as a fairly simple orange and black wreath segued into a somewhat more elaborate creation. I hadn't intended to end up with what I did, but I'm happy with it. The cobweb paper is actually an Impression Obsession background rubber stamp - #CC141 C-A-C "Spider Web". I cut it into a 5" square and edged it with black ink. It was glued to the face of a 5-1/2" square top-folded card and a circle was die-cut through both layers to expose the inside of the card, where I attached the circle cut-out left over from the die-cut. I mounted several die-cut circles to the face of the card with orange textured cardstock, layering the top one with several additional layers of black stock for some dimension. The black twine bow and white heat-embossed tag were tied on the top circle before attaching it and a fussy-cut spider from Park Lane "Haunted Hollow" printed cardstock.

Opening the card reveals a gray 5" square panel with a circle cut in the center, the sentiment from a very old Halloween stamp set white heat-embossed and a second fussy cut spider. the final addition was a tiny bug fussy cut from scrap of old Halloween paper glued to the cobweb with an even tinier piece of dimensional foam.

So, there's still two weeks left in our challenge to come up with your own creations. And remember that you can enter more than once! AND you might just win the prize this month!

HEART & MIND

Whew! It's been a busy weekend for cardmaking. It was such a relief to have the elections over that I found all sorts of pent-up creative energy! This card is an attempt to combine a couple of different challenges - Color Hues #52 - Turquoise & Mustard and Time Out #226 - Words. Then as I got into it, I saw that Just Us Girls has a new challenge #658 Trend Week - "Make a Matching Envelope", which is something I often do anyway. 

I started with an old Inkadinkado butterfly, stamped with black ink onto a white stitched panel and colored with Copic Markers. I die-cut a couple of hearts from turquoise and mustard (Dijon mustard, rather than the bright yellow mustard) and layered them on the body, along with a tiny white punched heart. This then got matted with mustard. The sentiment is from an old PTI stamp set "Heart Print Sentiments". I cut through the top panel around the bottom of the left wing so that I could slip the turquoise printed tag under it over a mustard banner strip. Once this was all in place, I punched through the layers to thread some twine. The envelope features a couple of other stamps from the same Inkadinkado set - I don't think I've ever used these other stamps before this.

Color Hues: Color Hues #52- Turquoise and Mustard (colorhuesthecolorchallenge.blogspot.com) 

Added November 16, 2022:

TIME OUT Challenges: Challenge 226 -- Words

Added November 25, 2022:

"Just Us Girls" Challenge: Just Us Girls #658 Trend Week (justusgirlschallenge.blogspot.com)

GINGERBREAD VILLAGE

I was contemplating participation in the current Fusion Card Challenge - "Gingerbread", but even though I am a foodie, I don't have any stamps or dies in my stash relating to baked items (I need to do something about that!). But then, looking at the photo with the little gingerbread house cups, I came up with the idea of a gingerbread village. I flipped the layout so that the horizontal element is at the lower 1/3 of the card.

 

I started by blind embossing a white cardstock panel and stamping the sentiment with PTI "Hawaiian Shores" ink and attaching a 1" band that was die cut with a wave die from Nellie's Choice. The tiny houses and trees are a combination of Alexandra Renke "Christmas Village" #D-XX-AR-W0128 and Nellie's Choice "Village" #SD214. I die-cut all of the little houses in kraft cardstock and decorated them with white gel pen and backed with colored stock. 

 

Fusion Card Challenge: FUSION - Gingerbread 

 

CHRISTMAS DREAMS

Over at Addicted to CAS the current word prompt is "Present". While a single present is nice, I decided that three presents was even better!

Digging through my Christmas papers stash I came upon some pieces of printed cardstock with gift boxes under a stylized tree. I fussy cut them and attached them to a pale green stitched rectangle panel after heat embossing the sentiment with red ZING! embossing powder and matting it with red cardstock on a white card base. I finished with 3 red gems.

Addicted to CAS: Challenge #233 - Present 

 

THANKFUL FOR AUTUMN BLESSINGS

Even though it has been a stressful year on many levels, we still have much to be thankful for this fall season. I've been working on my Thanksgiving cards, have finalized the design, and have most of them completed. I didn't use a specific challenge for inspiration, but I did decide to work only with materials I already have on hand.

I think this CAS design is pretty much self-explanatory. I used 110 lb. white cardstock for the base as well as the front panel and image. I had some kraft papers for a mat that I edged with my PTI "Dark Chocolate" pad before attaching the stamped sentiment panel (PTI "Stylized Autumn" and "Dark Chocolate" ink). The image is from Impression Obsession "Shades of Autumn" that I colored with my Copic markers and die-cut with a small deckle-edge die. I punched a hole in the corner and threaded a single wooden bead with a piece of brown twine. The twine I had on-hand was too thick to thread through a bead, so I separated the twine and I rather like the kinky quality.

This is the interior of the card - I left it to a single layer so that it can be mailed with just first-class postage. The cost of my Halloween cards this year was definitely a budget-breaker! Again, the image is from Impression Obsession's "Shades of Autumn", colored with Copics, and the sentiment is from Colorado Craft Company's Savvy Sentiments #SS366 - "Truly Thankful", although I cut it apart and tinkered with the layout a bit, stacking and centering the words.

There are a couple of challenge blogs where this card is marginally acceptable because they suggest Thanksgiving cards.

I used orange-yellow, orange, and red-orange with green and neutral browns for this Less is More Challenge #477:

"Less is More": Challenge #477 - Colour Wheel (simplylessismoore.blogspot.com)

The Paper Players: PP616 - A Theme Challenge from Claire

Make the Cards Challenge #67

Added November 12, 2022:

Added November 19, 2022:

TREES, TREES, TREES!

That's the prompt at Christmas Kickstart Challenge #68. I set an additional challenge for myself to do a card with an all-dark background, accentuated by only textural differences.

I started this card by blind-embossing a 4-3/4" x 4-3/4" square of dark blue-green cardstock. I filled the dots in with a metallic silver pen. I matted this square to a pale aqua patterned cardstock and silvered the edge of the aqua before attaching it to a 5-1/2" x 5-1/2' top-folded iridescent white card base. The sentiment was heat-embossed with silver embossing powder onto a flat piece that I die-cut with a stitched wave from Lawn Fawn. The largest trees are cut out of various moss and aqua scraps using just the top portion of Tim Holtz dies. The 4 smaller trees are from Alexandra Renke. After gluing the trees to the embossed piece, I attached the lower panel with dimensional foam and attached the final tree.

Christmas Kickstart Challenge: Challenge #68 - Trees, Trees, Trees!

HEY, PUMPKIN!

How in the world did we arrive at November already? This month's Halloween challenge features mostly Southwestern images. I decided to go for the top right image with the cute pumpkin pots. 

Digging through my stash, I could only come up with one stamp set that featured succulents - a Lawn Fawn summer set "Simply Celebrate Summer" that had a row of pots with succulents. I cut the individual pots from the row (a habit of mine when I want to break up a sentiment or image). The pumpkins are from a very old Halloween set. I printed them in black and colored them with Copic markers, blacked out some of their teeth, and fussy cut them. I arranged them on a die-cut oval and stamped the pots and succulents strategically and attached the pumpkins, popping up the middle one with some dimensional foam. I white heat-embossed the sentiment (Simple Stories "Boo Crew" #13820) on a black scrap and die-cut it with a small, stitched tag. I mounted a printed panel and orange mat on a black to-folded card base and attached the grunged-up oval and tag and tied a couple of lengths of black and orange twine to the tag.

Hopefully you won't be burned out from Halloween and will follow along with us as we continue our full year of Halloween cards! The Design Team is fully enjoying this - wait until you see what they've done to inspire you!

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: NOVEMBER Anything Halloween